In the pink by Brenda

Good morning Peeps.

I am back with some more shares from Lesley's recent shows using the some of the beautiful Tree stamps which as with all Chocolate Baroque stamps were a delight to work with.

Above I have used Dylusions to create a background over which I stamped (second generation) one of the images from Indian Textiles  as I wanted to create some subtle background interest, then stamping one of the trees from Fantasy Woodland with Versafine Black and colouring in with sparkle pens and adding white highlighter. The sentiment is again from Birthday Words.

I will be the first to admit I am not a particularly frugal crafter but I do save all the smaller pieces of Fabriano which I always seem left with after cutting square pieces from the A3 sheets as they are the perfect size for creating a triptych card. I inked all three pieces with Oxide inks and using Black Versafine stamped three trees from Fantasy Woodland and Tall Trees stamp sets and a sentiment from Birthday Words.

My starting point for this card with a Dylusions background and my usual spritz of pearl mica spray to blend the colours followed by stamping around the edges with Large Crackle Background.............such a useful stamp that we all need in our stash......... using Versamark and embossing with detail gold powder. I then stamped Poppy Meadow Words of Inspiration with Versafine black and bleached out the colour, but as I added the bleach I mopped each flower with a piece of kitchen towel so it left some of the colour to give a pinkish finish. I stamped the sentiment onto an offuct sprayed with the same Dylusions and added some ribbon to finish.

I am really still not sure about this one, it's all rather dark although did look better in the flesh. I stamped the main panel onto a piece of card coloured with Oxide inks using a stamp from Butterfly Daisy Collage and Butterfly Poppy Collage multi buy. I then used Versamark and detail clear embossinng powder to glaze the panel, giving it three coats of both. I stamped the flowers from the same multi buy onto card coloured with the same inks, cut out and covered them as well with embossing powder before layering up. I placed the panel inside a die cut frame and arranged the flowers and some ribbon.

I hope you have a lovely day.

Just thought.. (By Marga)

Hello everyone. A card from me today.

For this card I used Distress Ink also for the colouring of the flowers. The crackle stamp I stamped all over the image also.

Stamps I used are: Poppy Meadow, Loving Sentiments, Texture Fragments, Lace Fragments.

Hugs 

Marga

Pretty Poppies (by Julie)

Hello, today I have a couple of floral cards to show you.

My first card is a DL card that I have created with the Pretty Poppies set. I simply stamped the central poppy design with Versafine ink and coloured with pencils. I then inked up the little corner stamp with a dark green Versafine and stamped the border around the outside. No special measuring was needed and if you go slightly wrong don't worry, just treat it as a design opportunity. That is why the little Thanks sentiment is there...haha. 

I finished off the card with Distress inks for the background and dabs of Crystal Stickles.

For my second card I cut a piece of glossy card to fit my card blank and brayered the background with blue and green dye ink. I lifted some of the colour by sprinkling with water and then dabbing the excess off with a kitchen towel.

I inked up flowers from Pretty Poppies and Poppy Meadow to create the floral design. I then stamped the larger flower from Pretty Poppies onto white stamping card and cut out selected areas to decoupage over the top.

I finished off the card with some stencilled butterflies using the Kaleidoscope of Butterflies mask and a sentiment from Pretty Poppies.

Many thanks for stopping by and please call back very soon for daily Design Team inspiration.

Julie xx

Autunm & Spring ( by Magda)

Today I want to share with you two journaling pages, as I always return with lots of fun and pleasure to this technique.

For both projects I used the following products :
1. Dylusions Creative Journal
2. White Gesso :  apply randomly with the spatula on the pages and let dry
3. Distress Ink Pad : blend the different colours for the backgrounds with Blending Sponges

For the Autumn Page :
1. Chocolate Baroque Stencil "Seasonal Journey":  stencil the word "Autumn" using Distress Ink
    Pad - Walnut Stain
2. Chocolate Baroque Stamp "Nature Table" : stamp the mushrooms and the leaves with Versafine
    Onyx Black,  Vintage Sepia and Olympia Green and colour with watercolour pencils
3. Chocolate Baroque Stamp "Nature's Peace" : stamp the text with Versafine Onyx Black and repeat
    it in second and third generation

For the Poppy Page :
1.  Chocolate Baroque Stencil "Seasonal Journey":  stencil the word "Spring" using Distress Ink
     Pad - Mowed Lawn
2.  Chocolate Baroque Mask "Kaleidoscope of Butterflies": use White Gesso through the butterfly
     stencil and let dry
3.  Chocolate Baroque stamp "Just Butterflies": stamp the matching butterfly with Versafine Satin Red 
     and Deep Lagoon on the gesso
4.  Chocolate Baroque stamp "Poppy Meadow": stamp the big poppy with Versafine Onyx Black
      and colour with watercolour pencils
5.  Chocolate Baroque stamp "Autumn Hedgerow" : stamp the flower branch with Versafine Olympia  
     Green and Satin Red
6.  Chocolate Baroque stamp "Loving Sentiments": stamp the sentiment with Versafine Onyx Black
     on the page and randomly in second and third generation here and there again

I hope you enjoyed looking at my pages and I wish you a relaxing crafting time.

Magda

Transparent Poppies (by Anne)

Good morning. Today I am sharing one of my samples for the recent shows on Hochanda featuring the Pretty Poppies and Poppy Meadow stamps.

I coloured my scene using the fabulous alcohol markers from Chameleon. I simply love the new Color Tops that allow you to blend 2 completely different colours seamlessly – very tricky to do with standard alcohol pens.

Materials:

• Pretty Poppies, Poppy Meadow, Nature Table, Butterfly Poppy Collage stamp sets
• 8 X 8 inch card blank, 6.5 inch square card suitable for alcohol ink (I used Velvet Card) and scrap copy paper (to make masks)
• Inkpads: Versafine (Onyx Black), Distress Ink (Tumbled Glass), Memento Dye Ink (London Fog)
• WOW embossing powder (Clear Gloss)
• Zig 2 way glue (temporary adhesive for masks)
• Alcohol pens (yellow, green, blue, beige and pink): Chameleon Pens (YG3, YL2, BL3) and Color Tops (NU0, PK3)
• Permanent marker (black)
• Coloured pencils (black, green and pink/purple)
• Water based fine tipped pen (light grey)
• Gel pen (Hybrid Ink - black with metallic red)
• Stickles glitter glue (Crystal)

How it was done:

1. The card background was stamped with the honesty stamp and Distress Ink. The corners were stamped with Versafine and the edges blended lightly with Distress Ink.
2. The foreground poppies were stamped onto copy paper and cut out to create masks. Small dots of zig glue were added to the back and left to dry (turns from blue to clear) to create a temporary stick to hold them in place.
3. The foreground poppies were stamped with Memento (water based ink that will not bleed when colouring with alcohol ink pens) and then covered with the masks before stamping the background poppies.
4. The stems were extended where needed by drawing with the fine tipped pen (NB. Make sure it is suitable for colouring with alcohol pens without bleeding – test if unsure).
5. The image was then coloured with alcohol pens. I love the delicate transparent finish – perfect for delicate poppies. I used the new Chameleon pens with Color Tops. These enable really easy one step blending of one colour into the next. Leaves were coloured with YG3 and NU0 Color Top, Flowers with BL3 and PK3 Color Top, Buds with BL3 and NU0 Color Top, Butterfly with YL2 and and PK3 Color Top.
6. A little texture and extra shading was added where needed with coloured pencils. The sentiment was stamped with Versafine and heat embossed with clear powder to emphasise. The card was edged with black marker to frame and glued to the card front with 3D foam for added dimension.
7. The butterfly was stamped with Memento onto a spare scarp of card, coloured with alcohol pens and cut out. To enhance the butterfly details (the grey ink was a bit pale) I overstamped it with Versafine Ink.
8. A little metallic ink was used on the butterfly and stamens. Further sparkle was added with Stickles glue.

poppies (by Veronica)

  I am an absolute sucker for poppy stamps, so it was lovely to have these stamps back in the spotlight.
The butterfly poppy set is A4, so there are lots of images to play with. I used the large scripty image to make the background, stamped in hickory smoke distress ink and sponged witht he same ink.
I inked up the main image using distress markers, using one colour at a time and my stamping press to make sure the images matched! Doing it this way meant that the ink stayed damp, and any in the wrong place could be removed easily. This was on white card, sponged with wild honey distress ink after stamping and tearing round the image. I curled up some of the corners as well before gluing down

 The background here is grey again, leafy spray from take it or leaf it. Image from poppy meadow stamped in black versafine ink and coloured with watercolour pencils. Die cut in an oval shape, which was edged with black versafine by running the diecut along the pad.
three small gems to finish





Third card uses the script and poppy head stamps from butterfly poppy to create the background, stamped using wild honey distress ink and sponged edges with the same ink.

The main image was stamped with brown ink onto white card, sponged with the same ink on the harlequin bit and very lightly across the script to try to suggest antiquity. Pured with marker pens, then cut out and glued over the original image - I didn't try to cut the antenna out!

A very quick card using an image from pretty poppiespoppies , stamped using versamark and white embossing powder, then red and green distress inks sponged across the image















                                                                                               Lastly a card using another stamp from pretty poppies, stamped directly onto a 7"x5" card blank using black versafine ink, and coloured with watercolour pencils. Sentiment also on the same plate.
Another very quick card.

More Autumn by Brenda

Hello Peeps, I am back again with some more of my samples from Lesley's recent Autumn shows on Hochanda.

So more indulgence in inky Autumn colours and Poppies and my starting point for the top card was a background of  Mica powders spritzed with pearl mica spray to bleed the colours and add some sparkle. I then stamped the Poppy heads from the Poppy Meadow set along with some smaller ones from Natures Table and some grasses from the same set. Next I used a stencil and Distress Inks to add some sun rays, then stamped some more poppy heads across the top. The sentiment is from Natures Peace which is one one of the sets in the multi buy. I added colour to the Poppy heads using the same mica powders and highlighted with a white pen.

Scenes are something I really enjoy creating and for the card above I started with a cloudy sky using distress inks and bleaching out some clouds. I then stamped trees from the Autumn Edges and Tall Trees using Gathered Twigs DI and added leaves with DI's using just the top of one of the larger stamps in the same set. Using watered down DI I painted in some hills and stamped leaves along the top using another stamp from the same set. The fauna in the foreground is stamped with an image from Silhouette Grasses and sentiment from Birthday Words.

On this one I tried to create warmth using DI's for the background and then added some stenciling. The focal images is from Fantasy Woodland. After cleaning the larger stamp I masked off a section so I could ink and stamp just the tiny trees alongside the small tree to the right. Inking just the tip of the flower stamp in the set I added a border around the piece and finally stamped a sentiment from Birthday Words.

Another Oxide background here with some stenciling, followed by some background stamping using the scrip stamps from Butterfly Poppy Collage and then the lovely harlequin and Poppy head stamp using Versafine Black. After stamping I cleaned the stamp, masked the Poppy heads and inked just the harlequins to extend the pattern. The two Butterflies are from the same set and coloured in with the same inks used for the background.

I hope you all have a lovely day with some crafty time as well.

Autumn Day by Brenda

Good morning Peeps, today it's my turn to share some inspiration using stamps which Lesley showcased on Hochanda recently. The shows were all about Autumn, Trees and Poppies so ticked all the right boxes for me as I love working with Autumnal colours and as those who know me can confirm Poppies are my favourite flower plus I am a self confessed 'Treeaholic'.

For the card at the top I used three panels of cardstock and stamped two with images from the Autumn Edges set colouring with DI's and on the the third panel used the same inks to add the words using the Seasonal Journey stencil.

The lovely Poppy from Pretty Poppies is the focal image on this card, stamped with Versafine Black onto a watery Burosho background, I mopped quite a lot of the colour away as I wanted a subtle finish and then coloured the flowers with sparkly pens, stamping the Butterfly a second time to decoupage. The corners are from Baroque Corners stamped in the same black and then I added a few leaves using Useful Leaves stencil and ties some red ribbon and added a Poppy button.

The same stencil as the top card has been used along with DI's to create the background for this card and the for the focal panel I created a Brusho background and stamped one of the tree from Fantasy Woodland adding a few stenciled leaves using the Seasonal Elements stencil.......I can't begin to tell you how useful these stencils are for building up interest and colour on your artwork.

This is another sample from last weeks shows on Hochanda, this time using one of the images from Butterfly Poppy Collage stamp set, it's an A4 stamp sheet and you get absolutely loads of beautiful images. The background is Distress Oxides, stamped with Versafine black and the colour added to the Poppy heads using the same Wilted Violet ink and Glossy Accents added, plus a little stamping down the left edge, again using the same ink and stamps from Nature's Peace and the same set as the main image.

I am tentatively adding this one as Lesley asked if she could use it as the basis of one of her demos, however I will be away on holiday when the shows are aired and this post goes live so it may or may not have featured. Using a circle as a mask I stamped a selection of flora and fauna from Nature's Table, Nature's Peace and Poppy Meadow, inking with Distress Markers direct to stamp and a spritz of water before each stamping. The horse chestnuts in the corners were stamped with DI and are also from Natures Table. After stamping I removed the mask and used the negative to stamp the focal sentiment, again from Poppy Meadow and added some shading around the circle.

And as I seem to have quite a number of pieces in my gallery which have not been blogged as yet I thought I would share a few of them in this and my following few posts.

A triptych design which was for the August shows featuring the beautiful Harlequin Bouquet stamped with Versamark and heat embossed with detail copper powder on to a Oxide ink background and some stenciling to carry the harlequin design.

This one features the lovely Summer Fayre stamped onto black cardstock using Versamark and detail white embossing powder, then coloured into metallic pencils, the colour is quite subtle but I rather like the soft finish.

Have a lovely day, I am hoping mine will be warm and sunny as today we sail into Rhodes in the Greek Isles.

Blue Poppies (by Penny)

Hello everyone, here is the second post this month from Penny Butler. She has made a pretty card incorporating some stunning blue poppies.

Penny writes:

Hello again, I hope everyone is well and still enjoying our Summer. Today I have a lovely 'worker' card for you, my second post here as Guest Designer this month.

I have used the Poppy Meadow and Words of Inspiration stamp sets, Kraft paper, black card, Distress Crayons, Onyx Black Versafine Ink, metallic colouring pencils, and bits and bobs from my stash.

I scribbled the crayons onto the Kraft paper and blended them with a little water. I added Distress Ink around the edges, matted the background onto black card, and attached it onto a white base card. On another piece of black card, I stamped and embossed a poppy. I coloured it in with pencils, then cut around it leaving a small border. I attached it with dimensional glue. I then stamped and embossed a sentiment in black onto a piece of Kraft paper, die cut it into a tag, and added ribon. I added the same ribbon, some lace and a button to the card with some adhesive tape, then added the tag. I finished the design with some Stickles glitter glue.

Penny will be back with her final project of the month next week,

Shimmering Poppies (by Penny)

Hello everyone, today sees the second of our posts this month from Penny Butler, our newest Guest Design Team member. This week, she has created a lovely poppy themed card for you. 

Penny writes:

Hi there, this is my second visit here and I've got a Poppy card for you today, featuring stamps from the Gothic Fragments and Poppy Meadow stamp sets, using the caught in crystal technique.

I started with a piece of white card and stamped the window slightly off centre. I masked the image and blended Distress Inks all over the panel. I faux bleached a stone wall effect on the background, making a stencil by die cutting a piece of scrap card and sponging water through it. I added some shadows by stippling grey ink through the stencil. I then stamped some grasses along the bottom of the panel. After removing the mask, I coloured the window image with water-based pens used as watercolours. I then stamped a sentiment using black ink.

I stamped and embossed the poppies onto acetate in black and turned the acetate over. I coloured the image with alcohol markers. I applied floor polish with some glitter added and then placed some crumpled tissue paper on top. When the polish had dried, I cut around the image, and attached it to the panel. I matted the panel onto some black card that I had embossed and gilded with metallic wax, and then attached this to a card blank. I finished the card with some red ribbon and a bow.

I hope that you've enjoyed this post, thank you for popping in :)

Penny will be back next week with her final project of the month, using the first set of stamps that she ever bought from Chocolate Baroque.

Four seasons by Veronica

 Four cards using the lovely new seasonal ladies stamps - big stamps that are an absolute delight to colour in.
The first uses spring awakening, stamped with black versafine, clear embossed, and coloured with pencils.
Die cut, then mounted on a 7" square white card blank randomly stamped with an old flower stamp from my stash using old paper distress ink.(Briar rose butterfly,  can't find it on the website at the moment, but it is avaiable from the Craft Channel website)

 Summer fair is the next stamp, again stamped in bl;ack versafine and clear embossed before colouring with pencils. I stamped a mask using masking tissue and masked the image before adding a gelli plate background uisng distress inks.
Again an oval die cut, and a 7" square white card blank stamped with a stamp from poppy meadow across the bottom using peeled paint distress inks.

 Autumn medley also has a gelli plate background added after colouring and masking the image, this time using acrylic paints and leaves from the garden.
This time the mount is an 8" square white card.
The wood -effect background is thanks to a link from Eileen Godwin.

Last lady is winter dawn, stamped with versamark onto light blue card and embossed with silver. Coloured with pencils again, white chalk marker, rhinestones added to the snowflakes.
Base card was 8" square in silver pearl, randomly stamped with a snowflake stamp from a child is born using silver pigment ink.
The mats are dark and light silvers.

My teamies have made some wonderful creations, so keep checking to se them all!

Fairy Meadow (posted by Claire)

Good morning, Claire here with a project made using lots of my favourite stamps. We're getting some warmer days and seeing some sunshine so I was inspired to create a project to remind us that Spring and Summer will soon be here. I've made a little concertina book with a little fairy magic.

I began by cutting 4 squares of white card (12.5cm) and lining them up to stamp the main flower images (from Poppy Meadow) and masked them with Pebeo masking fluid. Next  creating a distress ink background using shades of blue and green inks, misting with water and swooshing my card through the inky puddle. Once this was dry I stamped lots of foliage from Wild Meadow using different shades of green ink. 

I removed the masking fluid and coloured the flowers with coloured pencils. I decided my meadow scene needed some butterflies and a touch of magic too. The butterflies were stamped onto the project and also onto some of the lovely sparkly self adhesive acetate which is perfect for wings using Black Stazon ink. I cut out the butterfly wings and removed the backing before dusting over with mica powders. I layered the butterfly wings up with silicone glue.

I stamped the fairies with black archival ink and gave them some sparkly wings too. You can find the full fairy collection here

Lastly I made a cover for my concertina book using distress inks and mica powder applied to copier paper. While still wet I crumpled the paper up and left it to dry. Once this was dry I used it to cover two greyboard squares, one for the front and one for the back. On the front cover I stamped another fairy using black archival ink. It can be a bit tricky to stamp on such an uneven surface but if you do get any little areas that don't stamp properly you can just use a black fineliner pen to fill in the gaps.

To assemble my little book I glued my 4 squares onto a long strip of paper that I'd folded into four panel concertina. I attached the ribbon to the inside of the back cover and then glued the inner section to both front and back covers.

I hope you're enjoying all the inspiration from the DT this month

Happy Crafting and a big thank you for visiting today

Claire xx

Some old favourites (by Judith)

Hello everyone, I am taking a look back at some of my favourite stamp sets during this blog post, and I daresay that those of you who know me will not be too surprised to see poppies featuring heavily in my designs!

For my first card, I have chosen to combine stamps from the Poppy Meadow and Flora and Fauna stamp sets. I have stamped these images, and after masking them off, created a sponged background using Distress Inks, and a stencil. I have added a sentiment from the Loving Sentiments stamp set.

My second card uses a stamp from the Poppy Edges stamp set, which I have stamped several times onto watercolour paper sprayed with coloured inks. I cut the images out, and stuck them onto another sprayed background, adding a smaller image from the Poppy Meadow stamp set. I used some black card to mat and layer the background, and then added a sentiment from the Mackintosh Sentiments stamp set.

Please pop back for more retrospective projects from my Team Mates over the coming days. Thanks for stopping by, Judith xx

ATCs themed book "FLOWERS" (by Maria)

Hello everyone, I hope that you are enjoying the new stamps available on the website. Today I am going to show you how to make an ATC book using both new and old stamps. I hope you will enjoy it.

I made this ATC book with the following stamp sets :
Awesome Orchids clear stamp sheet, Poppy Meadow stamp set, Pretty Birdcage stamp set, Spring is in the air stamp set.

The products I used  are: Distress Paint Antique Linen, Distress Stain Spiced Marmelade and Distress Spray Stain Cracked Pistacchio. For the golden text I used a mask and some metallic gold embossing paste.
The flowers are cut out of a paper that I coloured with Dylusions and metallic spray. I made this paper a long time ago, and so I cannot remember the colours. I added some accents with yellow, orange, rose and green gelly pens.

White paper (10.5cms x 30cms) x4
Golden embossing powder, Versamark and heat tool
Black card stock 6 x (8.9cms x 6.4 cms) for the ATCs
Black acrylic paint

Instructions:
I started with my backgrounds; I put some Distress Paint on my craft sheet and with my Distress Spray Stain I sprayed some green on the paint. I added some orange Distress Stain further down, and I sprayed some water all over it. I took my white paper and went through the paint and the stains, covering my white paper. I sprayed some water over the whole paper while drying it with my heat tool. When everything was dry, I did it again to have more variation on my background.
I did the same with my second paper, so that my colours where almost the same, then I cut out 6 pieces of 8.5cms x 6cms, these pieces became my coloured parts of the ATCs. The two other papers (10.5cms x 30cms) I coloured on both sides in the same way.

Now the ATCs: I first stamped my flowers with black Versafine ink on the ATCs and added some colours. I used a stencil and with some embossing paste I gave some structure to the ATCs. I took the paper that I had coloured with Dylusions and metallic spray and stamped the flowers on the areas where I liked the colours the most. I cut the flowers out and placed them onto the ATCs with some 3D foam.
With some golden embossing powder I made a small border around the ATCs, then I took my gelly pens and added some nice accents here and there. Then I glued the ATCs on the black cardstock with some double sided tape.

Then I started with my book (9cms x10.5cms) x6. I took the two other pieces of coloured paper (green and oranges) and scored at 9cms, 18cms, and 27cms, I did this on both papers. I then glued them together to make a long strip, with one of the left over 3cms, placing it behind the other panel so that the front looked neat. I cut away the second 3cms strip. I took some orange Distress Ink and went around all of the edges, so that everything blended together.

For the covers I took some cardboard (10cms x 11.5cms) x2 and painted them with black acrylic paint. I dried them with my heat tool. I also put some embossing powder on the edges. I placed a ribbon in the middle of my last page on the outside of the book. Both sides of the ribbon were the same length. I did this also at the other end of the book. I placed the book in the middle of the cover, and then added the other cover on the other side of the book. To decorate the front of my book, I made another card (8.5cms x10cms) and placed it on my front cover.

I hope you enjoy making this project, it was a lot of work, but worth the end result.

Have a nice stamping time,
Maria

Autumn Tones (posted by Judith)

Hello Folks, I have some cards to share today, using some of the lovely new stamps that have been recently launched on the website. I love this time of year, as we are moving into Autumn, and enjoy working with the rich warm colours that are so evocative of the foliage that you see around on the trees and in the hedgerows.

For my first two cards, I made a wrinkle free Distress background, using orange and plum coloured Distress Inks. I have used a stamp taken from the Poppy Edges stamp set, and stamped around the corners of a piece of the background, using a darker plum ink. I masked the corners, and then stamped an image from the Poppy Meadow stamp set over the background using the orange ink that I used to make my background. However, I stamped the image onto scrap paper first, before I stamped onto the background, as I did not want the image to be too vibrant. I masked off part of the poppy edge stamp with masking tape, before I inked up one of the flowers, and then peeled off the masking tape. I then stamped the single flower onto a piece of stampbord. I coloured the image with pencils, and then covered the surface with three layers of ultra thick embossing powder, to create a tile effect. I added a sentiment from the Mackintosh Sentiments clear stamp set.

On my second card, I used a strip of the same wrinkle free distress background, matted onto burgundy card, and placed it onto a kraft card base. I stamped the poppy edge four times onto card, and coloured sections of the image with pencils, before cutting them out, and layering them onto the background. I added two of the little bees, which were also coloured with pencil. The sentiment was taken from the Amazing Birthday clear stamp set.

For my final card, I made a gelli plate background, using a selection of green inks, and stamped the single leaf and foliage stamp taken from the Autumn Poppy stamp set randomly over the plate. I took a print from the plate and trimmed it to size, before edging the background with a rusty coloured ink. I stamped the main image onto a large oval die cut, adding some colour to the background with green and orange inks. I coloured the image with pencils. The sentiment comes from the Nature's Peace stamp set, and is one of my favourites.

You are in for a real treat over the coming month with the samples created by my Team mates, so keep checking back to see their beautiful projects. Thanks for stopping by, Judith xx